Sir James Guthrie HRA PRSA HRSW HROI (1859–1940)

Introduction

In 1903 The Art Journal published a profile of the in-coming President
of the Royal Scottish Academy. Educated, erudite and of good stock,
the painter, James Guthrie, was well-suited to a role that mixed diplomacy
with artistic judgement in the leadership of an organization that
had been perceived as reactionary and parochial. Guthrie’s work from
this point was restricted almost exclusively to commissioned portraits
and, unlike Lavery, he seems to have painted only what was demanded.
Sadly, the radicalism of Midsummer, 1892, his Royal Scottish Academy
diploma picture, was shelved. This colourful depiction of three
young women taking afternoon tea in a shady corner of the garden at
Thornton Lodge in Helensburgh, had been praised by George Moore
as ‘summer’s very moment of complete efflorescence’ (Moore, p. 206). is extraordinary therefore to find that its fresh Impressionist handling
was revived for one exceptional work almost thirty years later. Garden Party. — Kenneth McConkey

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